News, Advice, and Tips for Parenting Teenagers

The By Parents For Parents Blog is regularly updated with the latest news and information on topics that relate to parenting teenagers. We'll post parenting advice and tips from trusted online news sources and expert parenting columns.

We invite you to add your comments. Please let us know if you would like some specific topics covered, want to share your experience as a parent dealing with teens, or just have general feedback on the By Parents For Parents Blog.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Young people today have access to more media and information than any previous generation. But in the age of cell phones and instant messaging, kids are also more separated from the adult world.

Maturity follows a formula," [Mark Bauerlein] wrote in the Knoxville News Sentinel. "The more kids contact one another, the less they heed the tutelage of adults. When peer consciousness grows too fixed and firm, the teachers voice counts for nothing outside the classroom. When youth identity envelopes them, parent talk at the dinner table only distracts them.

The Kaiser Foundation estimates that 68 percent of kids have televisions in their rooms. It also estimates that the total amount of time kids spend with media (in its various forms), is nearly equivalent to having a full-time job. Texting, downloading and blogging are all great pastimes, but kids also need quality time with the adults who can help guide and instruct them.

I couldn't agree more that kids need quality time with adults - preferably their parents. All the techie gadgets available often facilitate disruptive communications (cells, laptops, PDAs, texting, Facebooking, friending, and so on). The fear is that our teens will be replacing real engagement (and face-to-face communication) with shorthand messages rather than talking, listening, and articulating in person.

We should also remember that as adults, we can do a much better job as examples, by knowing when to disconnect ourselves from our own techie devices.

One last thought - let's not wholesale toss out these potentially advantageous tools. They also expedite communications in an emergency, allow teens to connect to positive sites and communities, and allow for long-distance parenting of kids who are away at school.